Longoria, that is.

It's about time that I've found a new favorite player. For quite a while, it's been Eric Chavez. Plays 3b for the A's, great fielder, decent hitter. The problem is that he's injured constantly, and it's not really very interesting having a favorite player that never actually plays. Oooh...Chavvy had more back spasms today. Thrilling. Plus, it would be nice to choose someone on the Rays, now that we've adopted them living down here.

Evan Longoria was the perfect choice. The consensus #2 prospect in baseball, also plays third base, also wears #3, plays for the Rays, got to watch him in spring training, and suffered through the ongoing debate over whether or not to have him start the year in the majors. Towards the end of spring training, I picked up a Longoria #3 jersey online -- a custom one, since they didn't even make them yet.

Fast forward to Saturday, April 12th. We had tickets for this game already and he was making his major league debut. I was wearing the jersey, of course. He looked nervous in the field -- a couple of his throws were a little off-line, nothing major. He got his first hit and RBI on a single in the 6th. The Rays lost, but a promising career had begun.

On the way out, a man approached me and said "I've got to shake your hand. Evan's my son, and you're the first one I've seen wearing his jersey". Pretty wild!

We went to the game again last night, and saw him get his first home run, a shot that also tied the game. The Rays lost, again, (they're 0-4 in games that I've attended), but I'm pretty happy with this decision so far.

Also, check back later this week -- I'm preparing a primer on the Rays for those of you who don't really know them yet. This is a pretty exciting team this year and one that has big things ahead of it!

Since everyone else is doing it, I thought I'd weight in on the whole Rays / Yankees "feud" that's been going on lately.

For those of you who are not aware, on Saturday, near the end of the game, there was a play at home plate. The Yankees catcher mostly blocked the plate, and the Rays runner essentially ran over him to try to score. Unfortunately, the collision broke the catcher's wrist which will certainly be a major blow to a promising career.

A war of words erupted after this, with the Yankees manager claiming that it's not appropriate to run over the catcher in a spring training game, and the Rays asserting that they were both just playing hard, trying to impress their organizations. Although I am admittedly biased in this fight, the fact is that reasonable people can disagree about how serious of an issue this was, or if it was an issue at all. It's unfortunate that the catcher broke his wrist, however, had this happened in a regular season game, there would be no complaints.

The Yankees and the Rays played again on Wednesday and tensions were high. Both teams were warned before the game that the umpires wouldn't be putting up with any misconduct, and they meant it. In the first inning, the Yankees pitcher hit a Rays player with a pitch and was immediately ejected. Most accounts believe that this was an accident, and I'm inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. The situation was very unusual for an intentional hit batter and it was a minor leaguer without major league control on the mound.

Things changed in the second inning. Shelley Duncan, trying to stretch an error single into a double was thrown out at second by quite a ways, so, he went into the base with his spikes up, catching 2B Iwamura in the thigh. Sliding into a base like this has been considered dirty and dangerous for as long as players have actually worn spikes. Even die-hard Yankee fans are admitting that this crossed a line. The benches cleared, a typical baseball brawl ensued (people shoving, throwing and missing punches, yelling at each other, etc) and some ejections were handed out.

In short -- the Rays play on Saturday was a play that is made with regularity during the regular season. It's questionable whether or not it should have happened during spring training, and it's certainly unfortunate that someone got injured. The Yankees play on Wednesday was simply dirty and would not be acceptable during spring training, during the regular season, or during game 7 of the World Series. There's no place for it and we're just lucky that Iwamura wasn't injured.

Well, it's apparent that I only update this site when there's baseball going on. But, now that spring training is here (and I've already been to two games), hopefully I'll have more to say shortly!

Kelli and I leave this morning for one of our biggest trips -- Denver, Seattle, San Francisco / Oakland, Los Angeles / Anaheim, and San Diego. Our basic itinerary is posted if you're curious. We're seeing a total of 9 baseball games in 13 days, which was of course the reason we chose these specific cities, but, we'll be getting things like the San Diego Zoo, Disneyland, etc, in there as well. We'll try to post an update or two from the road (and plenty of pictures), so stay tuned!

Haven't posted a while, but thought I should make a mention of an event coming up at the end of this month -- SABR 37. This is the Society for American Baseball Research's annual convention, and I'm really looking forward to it. I went to SABR 35 in Toronto and had a blast and regret not going to SABR 36 last year when it was in Seattle. Since St. Louis has a new stadium and Kansas City isn't far away (checking another city off of our list), it was a no-brainer to go this year.

If you're a baseball fan, I highly recommend you check out getting a SABR membership. It's worth every penny, and the convention is an added bonus.

Also, the Rays played some games in Orlando, FL this year, and we've posted the pics from Disney's Wide World of Sports.

We finally found some long lost pictures from our trip to New York City last year:

• Shea Stadium
• Yankee Stadium
• Central Park Zoo

And a few other new items:

• Dunn Tire Park (home of the Buffalo Bisons)
• Bright House Networks Field (home of the Clearwater Threshers, and spring training home of the Philadelphia Phillies)

Friday was opening day at Tropicana Field, and of course Kelli and I had tickets. We actually ended up going to all three games over the weekend...the Saturday game was a giveaway of a miniature Tropicana Field (so how could I pass that up?) and Sunday was mascot day, which was a draw for Kelli. Plus, obviously, there was some major league baseball for the first time in months.

The Rays looked fantastic Friday: solid pitching from Shields, decent power from the middle of the lineup, and an amazing comeback in the bottom of the 9th. I've never heard the stadium quite as wild as it was when Delmon Young hit the HR to tie the game. And all of this happened in spite of the top of the lineup going a combined 0 - 12.

Saturday's game was pretty forgettable. Fossum didn't have it, and Frank Thomas did. I've always been a big Frank Thomas fan, so, it could've been a lot worse, but, it was a lousy game for the Rays.

Sunday's game was Scott Kazmir's first start at home, and it was a beauty. He struck out 6 in a row, and 8 of the first 9 batters. Unfortunately, he also let up 2 HRs, including a 3-run shot to Reed Johnson. That was all the Jays would need.

All-in-all, an interesting, but disappointing, opening weekend. I have pretty high hopes for the Rays this year -- sure, they're not going to contend, but, I also don't think they'll finish last. Ideally, they'll be somewhere around .500, will trade some of their excess hitting for pitching, and be poised for a run next year.

One last note -- Akinori Iwamura. When I auctioned him off at our fantasy baseball auction this year, there were more than a couple people saying "who?" And to be honest, I didn't have high hopes for him either. I saw him a couple times in spring training...his arm looked weak, his range at third looked lousy, and his hitting was, well, non-existant. Now that the season has started, he's looking fantastic -- hitting for power, hitting for average (he's still at .500 or something as I write this), playing terrific 3B. Of course the true "Aki" is somewhere between these extremes, but the Rays may turn out looking very smart on this pickup.

We closed on the house on the 17th, but we haven't really had any time to spend there yet. That'll change this weekend though, as Saturday's our big moving day. Also on Saturday our cable gets switched over, and a bunch of furniture gets delivered. We'll actually have a bed for the first time since RIT, although we haven't settled on a mattress yet. Pictures and more info soon to come.

In other news, things are pretty good at work. Half of our employees are at IT Expo this week, so things have been pretty quiet. But, our product has come together really well and potential customers and dealers are coming out of the woodwork. If you're a small/mid-size business that's looking for a unique VoIP solution, drop me an email.

So, we've been looking for a house for a while now, and finally found what we're looking for. Here's some pics!

As you've probably noticed, I'm playing around with Google ads on this site. I'm more curious what sorts of ads will pop up than I am optomistic than they'll actually make any money, but, doesn't hurt to try!

In other news, Kelli and I are actively house-searching at this point. We put in an offer on a place a couple weeks ago, only to hear that they'd already received a better offer. There's a ton of development in the area north of the Manatee River, east of I-75, so I'll have more news on this soon.